2012-13 Verification Process
When a student completes a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the FAFSA may get selected for verification, which means the Federal Government wants the Office of Financial Aid to “verify” that the information provided on the FAFSA matches the student (and spouse, if applicable) and/or parents’ actual data on tax returns and other documents.
To help reduce the likelihood that your FAFSA is selected for verification, the U. S. Department of Education is encouraging all students and parents to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to answer the income information questions on the FAFSA. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool allows the import of tax information directly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into the FAFSA and should become available February 1, 2012.
In order to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, the applicant and the applicant’s parents (if the applicant is dependent) must have submitted a 2011 Federal Tax Return. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool can be used:
- approximately 10 - 14 days after your taxes were electronically submitted to the IRS
- approximately 4 - 6 weeks after your taxes were sent via regular mail to the IRS
You may have filed your FAFSA prior to submitting your taxes using the “Will File” status and estimated tax information. After filing your taxes and waiting the appropriate amount of time based on your method of filing listed above, you must login to www.fafsa.gov and select the link to "Make FAFSA Corrections". When making the correction, update your status to “Already Completed” and use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (if eligible) to update your tax information.
Please be advised that if your FAFSA is selected for verification and you are not eligible to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (or choose not to use the Tool), then you will need to Request a Tax Return Transcript from the IRS after your taxes have been filed. Once you receive the Tax Return Transcript from the IRS, you will need to submit it to the Office of Financial Aid as one of the required documents to complete verification.
NOTE: The process of requesting and receiving the Tax Return Transcript may delay your Financial Aid Award because it takes time for the IRS to send the transcript. If your FAFSA is selected for verification, CLU will send you a letter outlining the documents that need to be received by the school to complete your file.
